Dads writing about kids' culture

Free Universal Connection Kit Equals Ultimate Nerd Dad Triumph

When I was a kid, a nerd dad was something to be…well, maybe not ashamed of necessarily, but certainly discussed as rarely as possible, and taken out in public for biannual viewings if you could help it. Dads were supposed to own heavy metal tools and teach you how to use them only after you begged and proved you weren’t actually an idiot, and take you camping, and make you walk the dog. They were only supposed to care about your toys for as long as it took to scream obscenities after accidentally stepping on them. Aside from the occasional Pinewood Derby debacle, they were not supposed to get involved in dorky hobbies.

What’s the Free Universal Construction Kit, you ask? Why, nothing more than “a matrix of nearly 80 adapter bricks that enable complete interoperability between ten popular children’s construction toys.” In other words, as Kottke put it, it’s a new invention that lets kids “connect their LEGO pieces to their Lincoln Logs to their K’Nex.” Which is pretty awesome, and certainly something I would have been interested in, but what’s really interesting is how you make it — by cranking the damn things out on a Makerbot 3D printer.

I ask you: What kind of dad has a 3D printer lying around the house? A nerd dad. And while I can’t say for sure that nerd dads outnumber the lawnmowing, nearly mute, Old Spice-scented dads of my youth, I think we’ve reached some sort of geek nirvana when using an $1800 open source printer to manufacture plastic widgets for interspecies toy mating is regarded as no big deal.

I’d write more, but my four-year-old son wants to play Egg Punch on my old iPad 1. Just watch this trailer and marvel at our brave new world.

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I love this! But I also can’t believe you would cover this and not chide the company for such a non-family-friendly product name. It’s like a slap in the face to parents who would love to share this with their kids.